Rikimaru
by sasyst
Summary: Dota fanfiction: The Stealth Assassin is on a mission in a forest when he hears someone singing. He is curious and wants to see the creature who has such a beautiful voice
1. Chapter 1

Dota

Rikimaru

By Aditu

Rikimaru the Stealth Assassin was creeping through the forest while using one of his talents to remain invisible the whole time. He was looking for his target, who had to be somewhere around this place. It should have been an easy job but he was here for almost a week now because he couldn't find the damn thief. The location he had been given had been more than wrong and now he was walking through the whole forest to find him. And it was a big forest. If he had to go through its entirety, he would be here for at least another week.

It wasn't that bad since he liked to walk in the shadows of the trees, liked the smells and the sounds of his surroundings, found enough to eat and to drink and encountered no threads, but it was starting to get on his nerves that he wasn't able to locate the creature he was looking for. There wasn't even the slightest trace of him and though Rikimaru wasn't the best tracker on earth he wasn't that unskilled either.

He walked for several more hours before he decided to rest at the next suitable place. That was when he found a footprint. He knelt down and studied it. It was definitely not from an animal. Rather human or human-like. He would have said that this was what he had been looking for, but it was too small to belong to the man he was out to kill. But since it was the first sign of something that didn't really belong here, he started to follow the trail. It was extremely easy, the creature not bothering to hide the footsteps.

A house appeared between the trees, standing on the side of a clearing. And then the Stealth Assassin could hear it: the soft sound of a melody, drifting through the trees and merging with the song of the birds into some complex composition. Someone was singing and she was _really_ good.

He drew nearer, careful now not to make a sound. He didn't have any business with some singing woman in the woods but he had to admit, he was curious. He couldn't make out the words but the voice of the female creature sounded so beautiful, he felt a little enchanted by it. Aside from the fact that he wanted to know what women lived in the middle of the forest, he wanted to know how a creature with such a clear and melodic voice looked like.

Rikimaru stepped onto the clearing right beside the house and looked around. The grass around the building had been trimmed somehow and it descended to a small lake on the other side of the house with a creek vanishing in the forest behind it. Trees and bushes with all kinds of fruit lined one shore and in a garden, with a fence around probably to keep animals out, vegetables and herbs were growing. It looked all extremely neat and constructed to supply whoever lived here.

The melody had grown louder, the words now discernible but from a language the Assassin wasn't familiar with. He crept closer, his invisibility hiding him. The voice was coming from the orchard and he could make out movement between the trees. He walked up to the lake and found a flat stone to sit on. He wouldn't go into the orchard but would wait here for the woman to come out. He wasn't in a hurry and he would simply listen to her song a little longer. Though he didn't understand the words it sounded like a happy song, like she was enjoying herself. It made Rikimaru smile a little.

He was an assassin but he wasn't bitter or cruel like some others of his profession he knew. He still liked to laugh at times and he even did things for fun. He could be ruthless and he killed without remorse but one didn't affect the other. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was a satyr, a species which liked to have fun and play pranks on others. He didn't do the latter anymore, though, at least not often.

So now he was sitting on this clearing beside a lake, just listening to one of the most beautiful songs he had ever heard. He had been a little on edge after searching this damn forest for a week but now he relaxed. His breathing evened out and he forgot about his job, just being for a few moments. Simply hearing this melody cleared his mind and made his soul sing, as if responding to the voice of a woman he hadn't even seen, yet.

The song ended.

Rikimaru frowned, wanting to hear more. He remained sitting, completely unmoving, and waited. He wasn't disappointed when, only a few moments later, the woman started again. It was the same song, but it didn't matter. He would listen to it a thousand times. The woman laughed, and though it interrupted the song, it was only a change in melody. She said something and then she began with a different song. This was one was a little faster, more bouncy. A fox jumped out of the orchard, running from left to right, followed by a small black cat.

And then, still singing, the woman stepped out of the shadows of the trees.

 _That is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen_ , Rikimaru thought. He stared at her for a full minute before his mind started to work again.

She was beautiful but contrary to his earlier thought, this wasn't a woman. It was a girl. Not a kid anymore but definitely not an adult. She wore a long dress but the hem was rolled up and pinned so it wouldn't drag through the dirt. It was dark green, leaving her arms uncovered, as well as her upper chest. She showed the first signs of becoming a woman underneath the cloth but the Assassin wasn't interested in that. She was only a girl after all.

Her face was lovely, big eyes, her nose a little sharp, and a smile on her lips even while singing. Her dark hair was bound into some kind of plait so he couldn't make out how long it was. Her feet were bare and dirty and she was carrying a basket with fruit she must have picked in the orchard.

Now that he thought about it, Rikimaru was sure that she wasn't the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She was simply a cute little girl. He had to admit, though, that she radiated a sense of joy in life that was unique.

The girl moved over the clearing now, taking different kinds of bowls and sorting the fruit in the basket into them. She kept singing all the time, her movements matching the tact of her song, her hands working with elegance and certainty but without any haste. The fox and the cat kept running around her but they didn't disturb her work.

The words of the song died away but the girl kept humming the melody. And since Rikimaru was sitting rather close to her he could still hear the soft tunes. He watched the girl, fascinated by her, how she moved and how she kept singing and humming all the time, how she smiled and how absolutely content she seemed. He wondered why she lived here like that alone, but he didn't really care.

He spent the rest of the day sitting on the rock, watching and listening, completely relaxed and not bothering to think about anything.

When the sun began to set, the girl gathered her things and headed into the house. The fox and the cat followed and she closed the door behind the three of them. The soft _click_ as the door locked made the Stealth Assassin move for the first time in hours. He sighed. And realized how hungry he was. He walked to the orchard and took two apples and with a last look at the house, he left. The walls of the building dampened the sounds from the inside too much for him to hear anything, so he could as well head on.


	2. Chapter 2

A few days later Rikimaru was standing over the corpse of the thief he had been out to kill. It had been too easy. He cleaned his blades on the clothes of the man. Job done.

He activated his Hearth Stone and appeared in an inn, in which he always had a room reserved to stay. From here he would send a message that he had finished his job. He would get the remaining money in a packet. He almost never talked to the ones he took jobs from. Everyone knew how to contact him and they also knew not to cheat on him.

Then the Stealth Assassin could choose which jobs he wanted to do and which were worth the offered money. He would begin as soon as he got the first half of the payment and there had never been a job he hadn't been able to finish. Sometimes it took more time than he liked, as with the last one, but he never failed. He chose his jobs well, not taking any risks. Because though having lots of money was extremely nice, it wasn't worth dying for.

He stayed in the inn for the night, going through the requests he had gotten. He sent his message and put a copy of it to the documents. He kept all information of every job he did and he always made copies of his own messages. It was a lot of paperwork sometimes but he had learned to keep records of everything and after years of doing it during his education it had become a habit he didn't even think of braking. He wasn't as neat as his brothers had been but it was enough, especially for an assassin.

He wrote more messages, asking for more information or confirming a job request.

Then the Assassin used the luxury of staying in an inn to full capacity and took a bath before eating something he didn't have to kill first and sleeping in a real bed.

On the next morning the payment for another job had already arrived and so he checked his weapons before he headed out immediately. No use in wasting time with nothing to do in an inn.

Half a year passed like that. Not that it had been any different for the last century or so. Sometimes the Stealth Assassin would take a break of a few days and do something for fun, maybe participate in a war where he couldn't die or visit some friends or just stroll through the world. Of course he loved all the feasts that were held in the big cities. He never missed one of those.

One day he woke to the sound of someone singing. For a second he thought the girl from the woods was there but the woman in front of his door just sang the same song. When she didn't hit the right tunes, Rikimaru cringed.

Not wanting to listen to _that_ , he climbed out of the window and headed into town. His movements were sure as he walked through the crowed, while most of them weren't able to see him. He went into a few shops but didn't buy anything. He wasn't out to buy something.

Until he stepped into a flower shop. He didn't even know why he had entered it because: what would he need flowers for? But now that he was here he thought about the girl, her song dancing through his head. He hadn't thought about her for a while now but the flower in front of him had caught his eyes while he could almost hear the melody of her song as she had sung in the orchard, shielded from his eyes. The flower was in a pot, which was good since Rikimaru didn't think the girl would appreciate some dead plant, no matter how beautiful it might look. He didn't know why he thought that about her but it seemed to fit. He also didn't know why he thought about giving some girl in some woods flowers. He wanted to leave the shop but instead he turned towards the owner and asked him if this flower would keep growing when planted in the land the girl was living in.

The owner was too professional to show astonishment about an assassin asking him about flowers. Maybe he had unusual costumers from time to time. And assassins had boy and girlfriends as well, so why shouldn't they buy flowers? He confirmed that the flower would grow extremely well as long as it was given a sunny place with enough water.

Rikimaru nodded and bought the plant. He left the shop with a knife in one hand (one could never be careful enough and it might take a second too long to draw a blade) and a pot with a flower in the other. He was unbelievably glad that he was invisible.

Getting to the forest was no problem and since the Assassin had memorized where the house of the girl was, it took him only two days to get there.

He could hear her singing before he saw the girl. The day wasn't as bright as the last time but it was warm enough and it wasn't raining. The Stealth Assassin carried the flower carefully in his hand. He hadn't dared put it in his backpack in fear of crushing it.

He was a little unsure of himself as he neared the clearing. What would he do with the flower? He didn't want to _give_ it to the girl because how would he explain it? It seemed too weird in his opinion. And somehow irrational to even buy her something like that. He had almost thrown the flower away a few times and gone back to the inn but in the end he hadn't been able to. So here he was, a little confused about his own behaviour and somehow restless.

The melody today was sad, not wanting-to-cry sad but today-is-not-the-best-of-days sad. It made Rikimaru stop thinking about himself and the flower in his hands. Instead he wondered what had happened to make the girl sing such a song today. He would have liked to know so maybe he could make it better but of course he wouldn't ask. Even if she wouldn't be afraid of him, why should she tell him, a complete stranger?

He took the same place as the last time, the flower in his hands. The girl was putting clothes on a cord she had tied between some trees to dry. She was wearing a light brown dress today, tied up in the same way she had done the last time, with her feet bare underneath the hem. This one covered her arms to her elbows and had a higher neck than the green one. It seemed to be too big, hanging loose around her slim body. Her hair wasn't plaited and it was a little wet. Her feet were clean so she had to have taken a bath.

Though the song was sad, it had the same effect on him as the happy ones had had, making him relax as he watched her. The restlessness and confusion was gone within minutes, leaving him with the feeling that it was absolutely _right_ to give this gorgeous little girl the flower he had bought. Maybe it made him wonder why he had stayed away for so long. This place, with the girl singing one song after the other, was a place where he could forget the world around him. And it was wonderful. He stayed the whole day.

The girl did the laundry, then she went into the house but left the doors open so the Assassin could still hear her. She got water from the lake, near enough to the stone Rikimaru was sitting on that he could see the colour of her eyes. They were grey, framed by dark brown lashed that made them look extremely pale. And they were sad today. The girl didn't smile as much as the last time as well.

Maybe the flower would cheer her up. He would leave it in front of her door when it was night. Then he would watch her on the morning. It was the only thing he could do.

While she worked in the garden, only humming then, the fox and the cat came from the forest. The girl petted them both a little before resuming her work. With the setting sun she went into her house, locking the door behind her and the two animals.

The Stealth Assassin waited until it was completely dark and he couldn't hear any sounds from inside of the building. Then he crept to the door and placed the flower on the ground in front of it, far enough away that the door wouldn't hit it. He went deeper into the forest to sleep, finding a place that wasn't too uncomfortable.

He woke ahead of the sun and was already sitting on the stone by the lake again when the door of the house was opened. The girl saw the flower immediately and stared at it with wide eyes. She was completely silent as she looked around the clearing, her eyes scanning the trees, trying to see whoever had put the flower in front of her door. When she found no hint of someone being there, she knelt beside the pot and tentatively reached for the pedals of the blossom. She stroked them, one after the other while a small smile appeared on her face. Her eyes shone as if she would cry any moment but she only blinked a few times before she took the pot and walked to the garden. The rest of the morning she was occupied with creating a place for the flower inside the fenced area.

She smiled every time she looked at it and when she was finished, her hands dirty and a streak of mud over her face, she sang the song Rikimaru had heard her singing in the orchard the first day. The one the woman at the inn had so poorly failed at. And now the Assassin smiled, his heart light. With one last look at the girl and the melody of her song following him, he walked deeper into the forest before heading back to the inn with the Hearth Stone.

He was hungry and tired, but happy. The girl had clearly been excited about the flower and Rikimaru was pleased with himself. He had been extremely unsure if it was a good idea to make her a gift but she hadn't seemed too disturbed by its appearance in front of her door. Still smiling and with the melody of her song in his mind he slept.


	3. Chapter 3

The next months went by in a flurry of activity and the Stealth Assassin seldom thought about the girl in the forest. But when a job brought him into a town near this forest he couldn't resist making a side trip to her house. To be true, he didn't really try to resist.

He was looking forward to a quiet day where he could just sit there and listen to the most wonderful songs he had ever heard while watching the girl doing her chores with her graceful movements and a smile on her lips. It was peaceful and once in a while he liked that. Not all the time, that was for sure. But after all those jobs he had done, all those events he had attended and all those creatures he had met he was glad about a little time for himself.

After creeping through the forest for almost two days, he began to smile as soon as he heard the first tunes of a melody sung by the girl drifting through the woods. He quickened his pace and stopped when he left the last row of trees. The girl had grown. Maybe it had been longer than he had thought since he had last been here. But aside from that, nothing had changed. And so Rikimaru sat on the same stone as before.

The girl was wearing the same brown dress as the last time but now it fit better. Her hair was plaited and her feet dirty, which was no wonder since she was working in her garden, digging in the earth to plant seeds, watering the plants already growing there and harvesting what was ripe. On one side his flower was blooming. It had grown as well so the girl must have taken good care about it.

After finishing with the garden, she hacked some wood. She struggled with the big axe and for a second Rikimaru thought she might drop the thing on her foot. But she was a tough one. She actually stopped singing while she made fire wood out of one of the trunks she had lying next to the house and the Assassin was glad that she concentrated on what she was doing. He didn't mind not hearing her voice when it kept her from hurting herself.

He would have liked to help her but of course he couldn't. When she put the axe away she grimaced. And the Stealth Assassin knew what he would do this night for her. It meant no sleep for him and lots of work, especially since he couldn't make the fire wood in front of her house because of the noise. He had to fell trees and hack them into small enough pieces and then carry them to the clearing.

When the sun was rising, a rather tired and completely wiped out Stealth Assassin was sitting on the stone by the lake, watching as the girl left her house, a small smile on her face as she was humming, her fox and her cat running through her legs and almost making her stumble. She laughed and bent down to pet both before they ran off into the forest. She stretched and held her face in the sun, her eyes closing. She took a deep breath and looked over the whole clearing.

Her gaze landed on the huge stack of firewood next to her house, exactly where the tree trunks had been the day before. Her smile vanished and her eyes grew wide. She took a step backwards while she scanned her surroundings. She seemed wary and suspicious. Her call wasn't loud but the fox came running immediately. The cat trailed behind and the girl went to the stack with them in tow.

She knelt down and pointed towards the wood. The fox sniffed at it and began to walk around the place, his nuzzle always on the earth. Rikimaru wasn't worried that the animal would find him. He wasn't stupid. But he liked that the girl was careful and suspicious and checked for a thread.

After the fox had found nothing the girl took a look around again. Then she pursed her lips and stared at the fire wood for almost a minute. She got up, took a few pieces from the stack and brought them into her house. Before she began her work, she cast a confused glance at the wood again but since she could either use it or throw perfectly good fire wood away, she chose to use it. She even began to smile.

Rikimaru yawned when she hummed the first tunes of a song and within seconds he was fast asleep, his head on his arm and curled up like a cat, not even noticing that he was lying on a stone. He knew that he had done the right thing and he felt unbelievably good about it. He woke up in the dark, the girl already gone inside.

From that day on Rikimaru the Stealth Assassin went to the girl in the forest on a regular basis. He didn't let as much time pass between his visits as he had between the first three times he had been there. And he made sure always to bring the girl something. Or to do something for her. Food, a new dress, seeds for her garden, a new fishing rod after he had seen how her own one had broken, things like that.

The girl in the forest had become his safe place, had become the one place where he went to relax and to take his mind off everything. Here he found peace, could let go and unwind. Just being near the girl soothed his soul.

The years passed and the girl had gotten used to the presents that appeared in front of her door sporadically.

One evening, when Rikimaru was sitting at his spot (he had moved a little away from the stone onto the softer grass), the girl came out of her house again after it had already gotten dark. She had something in her hand, which she placed on the ground in front of her door. She scanned the trees that circled the clearing but even if the Assassin had been visible it would have been too dark for her to see anything. The girl went inside again. The thing she had put on the ground lying there.

Rikimaru was curious what it was and why she had put it there. But he waited, definitely impatiently, until he was sure that the girl was asleep before sneaking up to the building. He put the things down that he had in his hands. He had brought a few tools for the girl so she would be able to work easier in her garden. And a small knife, very sharp. She always seemed to struggle with hers.

In front of him lay a letter in an envelope. Rikimaru was unsure what to do now. Why had the girl put a letter in front of her door? It was weird.

There was something written on the envelope but though the Assassin could read the letters he didn't know what the words meant. They were probably in the same language as the songs the girl always sang. He stared at it. There was only one reason for the girl to put something in front of her door at night: it was for him.

Carefully he picked the letter up. He opened it and unfolded the piece of paper that was inside. The whole page was filled with writing. He was a little disappointed that he didn't understand the words. So he tucked the letter away in his pouch. He would give it to someone who could translate it for him. Tomorrow. He _never_ left before he hadn't seen the face of the girl when she looked at his gifts. Her smile warmed him from the inside and he felt a little pride that he could make her smile like that.

What he liked most was, when she sang the first song he had heard from her afterwards. It seemed to be her favourite one and it was a way for him to know that she was happy. Usually he left after that song and this time was no different.

Back in the town he immediately went to someone, who did translations for a job, and gave him the letter. The man looked at it and nodded. It wouldn't take him long, he said. So Rikimaru waited in the front area of the shop. He wanted to know what the girl had written, wanted to know if the letter really was for him. There was still the chance that it wasn't. He walked up and down the place, hating having to wait.

The man came out of the back room, the letter in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. He gave Rikimaru a strange look but said nothing as he handed him the things.

The Stealth Assassin gave him his money. "You know who I am, don't you?" The man nodded. "I don't know what is written in the letter but I expect that aside from me and you no one will ever learn about it. If I find out that you told anyone, make sure to say goodbye to all your friends and family because I will find you no matter how good you hide."

The man nodded again. "Of course. This is a respectable business. What I translate always stays secret." There was no fear in his eyes, maybe a hint of irritation, and Rikimaru was sure that it was because he wouldn't tell anyone and therefore there was no reason for him to fear the Assassin.

The Stealth Assassin locked himself up in his room before he took the letter and the translation out of his pouch and put them both on the table in front of him. The paper of the letter was more yellow than white and dirty and crumpled. It was written with coal and the letters were uneven and in parts hard to decipher. The translation was in sharp contrast to it, white paper, written with quill and ink, neat letters.

 _To my unknown giver_

Those were the words on the envelope. So it really was for him. Rikimaru smiled. The girl had written him a letter. After, what was it, five years? After five years this was the first time she gave something to him. He had never expected something from her but now that he held the letter in his hands he was giddy to read it.

 _I'm sorry it took me so long to write you. I always expected for you not to come back but after five years it is time to push this fear aside. I don't have anything to give you but I at least wanted to tell you how grateful I am for the things you leave for me. Thank you. The days that start with me finding a present in front of my door are always the best ones. I treasure everything you have given me and I like that you give me things that I actually need and not only things that look nice. I have to admit, though, that it makes me a little nervous that you always know what I need because it means you watch me. Creepy to know a stranger is watching you sometimes. But since I can't change it and you don't seem to want to harm me I will hope the harming part stays as it is and enjoy that I have someone who thinks of me from time to time. I would really love to meet you one day. I don't know why you hide like that and I try not to make any assumptions. But I would like to thank you in person. I won't be mad if you never show yourself, you surly have a reason for it._

 _I can only thank you again, with all my heart. And wish you everything good._

 _Jayne_

Rikimaru smiled at the letter. So she liked his presents. For a moment he had the urge to go back to the girl immediately and shower her with things. Irrational. He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope, together with the translation. He stowed it in his pouch. Then he got up and left his room. He had things to do and he didn't have time to go back into the forest now. He would make sure though that the next present would be something special. Something that showed her that he had gotten her letter and that he appreciated her thanking him.

The words she had written whirled through his head the whole day. He got everything done but his mind wasn't really on it. She wanted to meet him.

The Stealth Assassin wasn't sure if it was a good idea. He felt uneasy and if he didn't know any better he would say he was afraid. He liked that the girl in the forest was the one place where he could go to relax. It was perfect as it was and he didn't want to change the dynamics of the place through showing himself to the girl.

He pushed his indecisiveness on the topic aside. He had jobs to get done.


	4. Chapter 4

Back in town, the Stealth Assassin went from one shop to the other. He was looking for the perfect gift for the girl in the woods as an answer to her letter. It took him all day but then he found it. A beautiful quill, ink and sheets of white paper. He got her enough to write at least a thousand letters. This way he could show her that he had liked her writing to him and it was also a way to tell her to continue with it. He didn't know if he wanted to meet her, at least not yet, but he thought it would be nice to read her words. Words meant only for him.

He had only been in the forest a few days ago but he wanted to give her the writing utensils. Since he didn't want to walk through the forest for two days to reach the girl, which he had been doing almost every time, he used one of the flying mounts of the town. He seldom rode on them because he was visible when he was sitting on one and because the flight master always knew the location he would travel to.

Early on the next day Rikimaru chose a lake in the forest, only half a day away from the girl, for the flying mount, a griffin, to take him to. The lake was distinct enough to be used as travel destination. The griffin hadn't even hit the ground when Rikimaru jumped from its back and ran into the forest.

It was afternoon, when he heard the first tunes of a song. It was only a soft humming and the Assassin already knew that it indicated the girl was fishing in the lake. He had watched her often enough to be able to connect activities of the girl with songs she always sang when she did them.

Rays of sunlight shimmered on her brown hair as she was sitting next to the lake, her knees tucked to her chest, one arm circling her legs while the other was holding the fishing rod. The fox and the cat were lying next to her, sleeping in the sun. Her gaze was distant, as if her mind wasn't really there. And why should it, she didn't need to concentrate on anything while fishing. She didn't even have to concentrate on the song, her singing and humming so much part of her that she did it without thinking.

Rikimaru watched her from the edge of the clearing for a while. Then he took the present out of his backpack and approached the girl. He stopped a few feet away from her. She had grown over the years but when she was sitting like that she still looked like the little girl.

Normally the Assassin would now sit down next to the lake, maybe a little farther away from his usual place to have more distance between him and the girl. But though he hadn't wanted anything to change between him and her, he had to admit that already her writing to him had changed something. With it, she had acknowledged his presence on the clearing, had made an interaction out of the action of him leaving things for her.

Somehow it suddenly seemed wrong to wait until night to put the present in front of her door. As if he would diminish their relationship with it. Not that it was any kind of relationship. But the letter had changed something and acting as if it hadn't felt wrong.

So he put the things he held in his hands on the ground. They were invisible as long as he was touching them. He took his hands away and made a few steps backwards.

At first nothing happened. Then the fox opened his eyes and, seeing the things that hadn't been there a minute before, he started to yip softly, nudging the girls arm with his nuzzle. She looked around at her animal's strange behaviour. Her eyes grew wide and she dropped her fishing rod. Then she jumped up. When she took the quill in her hand, she began to smile. Her smile only grew as she took the ink and when she took the paper last, she laughed.

The girl curtsied, not like a lady at the royal court, but so very cute with her bright smile and naked feet. She said a few things in her language, looking at the forest but clearly addressing Rikimaru. He just didn't understand what she was saying. It wasn't necessary, though, her smile alone said enough for him.

Now the Stealth Assassin went to his spot by the lake. He was smiling, too, glad that she liked his present, and wanted to enjoy listening to the girl's singing now. She vanished into her house though, only a low humming coming from out of the building.

Rikimaru wasn't an overly patient creature. But when he was with the girl he could lie near the lake for hours and he could wait the whole day for her to start singing. He didn't even mind if she didn't feel like it, though it had only happened once. And even when she didn't sing, she was still humming almost constantly, one melody or the other. He felt content just to be near her.

The fishing rod, still lying on the ground but not pulled in yet, twitched. With one glance at the house the Assassin walked over to it and just as the fish that was hooked would have pulled the rod into the lake, he grabbed it. He pulled the fish out and even killed it. Then he removed the hook from the creature and coiled the fishing line up before putting it on the ground and the fish into a small bowl with water, which was standing there extra for this purpose.

After maybe an hour the girl came out of the house with a sheet of paper in her hand. She walked to where Rikimaru had put the quill, ink and paper. She looked around but by now she already knew that she wouldn't see anyone. She saw the fish, though, and smiled. She said a few words and put the sheet of paper on the ground before dealing with the fish.

And now she was singing. It was a new song and the Stealth Assassin had the feeling that this song was especially for him. How he wished he could understand the words.

The next years Rikimaru spent much time on learning the language of the girl. He was about every four or five weeks for two days on the clearing. He still gave her things but he didn't leave them in front of her door when it was dark anymore. He snuck up close to her before putting them in her line of sight so they appeared seemingly out of nowhere. And every time he got a letter in response. Sometimes even two. She wrote them when he was gone and had them ready to give him when he visited her.

She didn't write about important things but the Assassin didn't care. He liked that she told him about her thoughts and feelings. And she always thanked him. But she never again asked to meet him. As if she respected his wish for distance and didn't want to push him. Maybe she was afraid that he would leave when she asked too much.

Of course he wouldn't. But he clung to this last piece of distance between them. He thought their relationship was perfect the way it was. If he initiated a change, it could as well backfire and he could be left with less than he had now. His time on the clearing in the presence of the girl was too precious for him and he didn't want it to change ever.

One day the Stealth Assassin learned about the location of one of his archenemies. One he had been looking for for years and whom he had never been able to find. It was about vengeance, something absolutely personal. Since he didn't know how long it would take to actually find the creature and kill him, he finished his actual job and then went into the forest to find the girl. He would only come back after he had killed his enemy, because now he had a lead on his whereabouts and he didn't want to lose him again, and he wanted to let her know that it was possible that he would be gone for quite a while. He didn't want her to wait for him every day and to worry about him.

This time, for the first time since he bought her presents, he got her something completely useless which's sole purpose was to be beautiful. He bought her a necklace.

It was raining a little today, just a drizzle. The girl was outside nonetheless, as she was every day. She only stayed inside when the weather was extremely bad. She was singing some bouncy dance song, clearly not caring about her getting wet. Her cat and her fox didn't share her sentiment because they were inside of the house, the fox lying at the door and watching the girl.

Rikimaru liked that about the girl, liked that her cheerfulness wasn't damped by something trivial as the weather. Even when she was sad she was in a better temper than most creatures when they weren't sad. The girl made the Assassin feel alive. He always only thought about the good things in his life when he was with her and wondered why he was sometimes unsatisfied with it.

He approached her. And because simply giving her the necklace wouldn't let her know that he might be gone for a long time, he turned visible for the first time in her presence.

The girl stopped singing and moving, staring at the Assassin with wide eyes. Rikimaru held the necklace out to her. Her gaze moved to the piece of jewellery and back to his face. She didn't say anything, just kept staring, clearly not knowing what to do or say.

The Stealth Assassin had learned her language a little. He wasn't perfect, could still most times not understand what her songs were about. But he could form small sentences and he could read her letters.

"Hello. I'm Rikimaru." He held the necklace out to her. "For you. I don't know when I am able to come here the next time. Can be long. I need to do something and it will take a while."

The girl tentatively reached for the necklace but didn't take it. "You are the one who leaves the presents?" The Stealth Assassin nodded. She smiled. And then she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him, her body pressing close to his. "Thank you." She whispered. "Thank you very much."

When she let go of him she was suddenly bashful. "Ahem, I'm sorry, I have millions of questions and I don't know what to say. I hope you won't be gone too long. Do you have to leave immediately?"

Rikimaru hesitated. He wanted to leave as fast as possible now that he had a location from where to start his vengeance. But on the other hand he didn't want to leave after only a few minutes.

"Do you want to eat? I just made dinner."

That's how he came to enter the house of the girl to have dinner with her. It was nice. The language was no problem and the Assassin was as relaxed as always in her presence. The girl talked about all and nothing and Rikimaru was content to simply listen to her. It was almost as good as her singing.

When they were both finished the girl tidied up. She was humming again. "Your singing. It is why I came here the first time. I heard you and was curious." The girl looked at him now. He hadn't talked much, mostly due to him just learning her language, but he felt like he needed to tell her at least a little bit about himself. "I sit by the lake and listen to you. These are the best days." He was struggling for the words in her language. "Your singing is good for me. I'm more balanced when I was here. More content."

The girl kept staring. Then she smiled the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. Rikimaru stood up and stepped towards her. He still had the necklace and he had to leave. He held it out and the girl turned around, pulling her hair away from her neck. "Can you put it on?"

The Stealth Assassin was so close, his body almost touched hers. He put the necklace around her neck and closed it at the back. He fumbled a little with the clasp, he had never helped a female put a necklace on. "Done."

The girl turned around and looked up at him. "Thank you. It is beautiful." Rikimaru smiled. _She_ was beautiful, with her big eyes, framed by long, dark lashes, her brown skin, tanned from being in the sun all day, her a little pointy nose, the smile on her soft lips, her slender face. Though the Assassin was small compared to humans, the girl was still a few inches smaller. She hadn't grown any more the last year so he suspected that she wouldn't get any taller. Her body had grown in other places, he realized, when she took a deep breath and her breasts almost touched his chest. The scent of earth and something flowery wafted around him, filling his head.

Rikimaru looked at the girl, but she wasn't a girl anymore. She was a woman. A beautiful woman who was wearing his necklace and the dress he had given her before. It gave him the feeling that she belonged to him.

He had known her for years now, spent more time with her than with any other creature, made her gifts and told her now when he left for a long period of time. Suddenly he felt like he was in a real relationship with the girl. Who wasn't a girl anymore, of which the Assassin grew more and more aware as he kept staring at her.

But even if he knew her, _she_ had only just met him. The only thing _she_ knew about _him_ was, that he gave her things.

He made a few steps backwards to get more distance between them. Because, damn if he didn't want to kiss her right now. And that was definitely not okay when she had just met him. And even less when she might feel indebted to him because of the gifts. Before he did something like that he had to get a few things straight between them and he didn't have time for that now.

So he simply smiled at her again. "I have to go. I have to take vengeance for something that was done to me once but I will see you when I finished my mission."

The woman nodded. "Thank you for telling me and not letting me worry." She touched the necklace. "And thank you for the gift. I love it."

"You are welcome. Jayne."

With that he exited the house and, now invisible again, vanished into the woods before using his Hearth Stone. In the inn he packed everything he needed before he headed out for his mission of vengeance against his enemy.


	5. Chapter 5

It was about one and a half year later when the Stealth Assassin returned to the clearing in the forest. It had taken way longer to find his enemy in the first place but he had always been on his track and so he hadn't wanted to quit the hunt or even get a break. And he had been right. After about seven months he had found the creature and had been able to kill him. In the process he had learned about four others who had taken part in the crime that made Rikimaru chase them now. So instead of heading back to his girl, he had moved forward on his path of vengeance, finding all four of the mentioned creatures as well. It had only taken him the rest of those one and a half years.

So now he was walking through the forest after having killed five of his enemies in the last year. And though there were five less of them, this was the first time in all this time that he felt happy. Now that he was going to see his girl again. He felt giddy, anticipation running through his body. He had to admit, he had missed her.

He had been about to end his hunt more than once just to be able to sit on the clearing and listen to her singing, to see her and to have her talking to him. But since he had wanted this vengeance for so very long and since he somehow felt indebted to the dead to carry out this act, he had kept going. But now it was over, he had completed this mission. It hadn't nearly been as satisfying as he had thought it would be, but at least it was out of the way now.

And he had not taken any other job so he was free at the moment. Free from any obligations. And he was really looking forward to this free time.

Rikimaru was grinning like a fool as he ran through the forest. Damn, he had missed his girl more than he had thought and he wanted to be with her as fast as possible. He slowed his steps when he was near the clearing. He loved to her voice before he saw her.

It was silent under the trees and the Assassin stopped. He waited for a minute. Maybe she had just stopped singing or she was inside the house. But the absence of any sound that indicated someone was living nearby was stirring a horrible feeling of dread.

Drawing his weapons, the Stealth Assassin went into full battle mode and crept forward. Something was absolutely wrong here and his assassin training kicked in. He heard nothing but his senses told him to be careful, to watch out.

When he could look through the last trees onto the clearing, he stopped in complete and utter shock. The house was burned down, only the blackened foundation remaining. The garden was destroyed, the fence pulled out and all plants trampled. The orchard looked almost unharmed but there was no fruit on the trees. The lake looked muddy and dirty and smelled bad. And in the middle of the grass on the clearing lay the half rotten corpses of two small animals. Rikimaru knew that it had been the fox and the cat.

Someone had been here and they had destroyed _everything_.

Frantically and close to panic the Assassin began to search the clearing and the vicinity for any sign of his girl. At least there was no corpse, which meant she had to have been alive when she had left the clearing.

Rikimaru wasn't sure if he should be grateful about that because he didn't know what the creatures, who had been here, had done to her, then. Maybe a quick death would have been more merciful.

The panic was slowly fading now, being replaced by cold determination. Whatever had happened here, he would find out. Whoever had done it, he would find and kill them all. And wherever his girl was, he would get her back.

The Stealth Assassin was more than aware that he had left her, here in the woods, totally alone and unprotected, to go on a mission for _over a year_. He felt unbelievably guilty and he wished he had listened to his heart when it had told him how stupid he was for leaving his girl alone for such a long time. He could have resumed his hunt at any time.

Now he had to follow a trail that was at least half a year old, in the worst case older than a year. And it could lead anywhere by now.

And so the Stealth Assassin was on the hunt again. He pushed every feeling of rising panic aside and concentrated on the things he had to do. Since he hadn't been able to find any trace of either the girl or the ones who had been here, he needed to get someone to help him. And he knew just the right creature. He was the best tracker and the best hunter he had ever met and if on the clearing or around it was someone or something to be found, he would find it.

He ported to the inn and sent a message to the Bounty Hunter. He made clear how urgent it was and hoped the Hunter would read the message soon. For the tracking a few days would make probably no difference after such a long time but Rikimaru would go mad if he had to wait for more than a few days. And how could he not? His girl was who-knows-where and he could do absolutely nothing at the moment. He sent a few more messages and tried to get some information about a group of creatures with a girl that was maybe a slave or something like that. A girl that didn't seem to fit with the group. It was extremely vague a request but if there was only the smallest chance for him to get a lead on where his girl was, he would take it.

After he had sent those messages he could again only sit and wait for the answers. He went into town and interrogated every merchant and everyone who came from outside of the town about the same. He got nothing.

When he crashed for the night he was exhausted. Not only his body but his mind as well. He woke too early, still tired. But his mind was running in circles. He had to go and _do_ something. On the other hand he had to stay near enough to a post box to get the answers to his messages as soon as they arrived.

So he did the second best thing after actually hunting: he cleaned and sharpened his weapons and checked his equipment. He made sure everything was ready to head out as soon as he got any information that would help him. That would give him a clue as to where to start his hunt.

The first messages begun to arrive in the early afternoon. They didn't contain anything helpful but for assurance that he would get any information they would receive on that matter.

Rikimaru sat down next to the post box, his head in his hands. He felt desperate and unbelievably lonely. For a minute he wallowed in his sorrow. Then he took a deep breath and stood up. He wasn't one to give up that easily. He would go to the clearing again, maybe he had missed something. And he would search in a bigger circle around it, if he had to he would even search the whole forest. He would go to the towns on the edge of the forest and ask questions there. He would get a message from the Bounty Hunter, the only one he was still waiting for, at the post boxes in others towns just as quickly.

He got everything he needed from his room. Before he went to the flight master, he stopped one more time at the post box. He held his breath as he found a letter from the Hunter.

It said: _Turn around_.

The Stealth Assassin smiled. When he turned, he saw nothing. The Bounty Hunter could go invisible, just like Rikimaru. The difference was that the Hunter had to trigger one of his abilities to do so and Rikimaru only got visible when he did something to dispel it. To get invisible again he just had to wait for a few seconds.

"Hey Gondar, thanks for coming so quickly."

The Bounty Hunter went visible in front of him. He was clearly amused. "Man, you are not very attentive today. I have you tracked for almost ten minutes now! What's up that you need my help? I remember your tracking skills weren't that bad."

Rikimaru told him as much as he needed but not all. They began to walk towards the flight master meanwhile. The Bounty Hunter flashed him a strange glance from the side. "You want to find a woman who has been abducted, maybe a year ago? I'm not sure that I'll be able to help. But I'll do my best." With that they had formed an alliance for the time being.

On the clearing the Assassin stood back and watched as the Hunter did what he did best. And Rikimaru was sure that if he found nothing, there _was_ nothing. The Bounty Hunter vanished into the forest and since the Assassin didn't want to trail behind him all the time, he stayed on the clearing. And though it was probably an absolutely futile thing, he began to tidy up.

The first thing he did was digging a grave for the fox and the cat. There wasn't much left of them but he thought they needed a grave, maybe something the girl would want to come back sometime.

Not much was left of the house so he left it as it was and went to the lake. He found out why it was so dirty (the creek was blocked) and he did what he could to get it back as it had been. Next was the garden. It would probably never be used again so he just got it to look not like a destroyed garden anymore.

The Bounty Hunter found him walking through the orchard. "They were undead. A group of five or six, probably a goblin with them."

Rikimaru frowned. Those were extremely detailed information, especially compared to the fact that he had found absolutely nothing. "How do you know that?"

"You don't really expect me to tell you that, do you?" The Hunter smiled and though his mouth was hidden under a half mask, it showed in the lines around his eyes. "I'm extremely sure, though, and I think I know to which town they went first. We can go there and ask some questions. If that doesn't work, I will try to track their movements. But that could take days and I can't promise that I'll be able to do so after so much time. It was actually about a year ago, by the way."

The Assassin nodded. "Then we go to the town first."

Since he knew what he was looking for and could ask more detailed questions, he indeed found a merchant who had seen a group of six undead and a goblin coming through about a year ago. He couldn't say if they had had a woman with them, though. But the timing was right, as well as the race of the creatures and their number. Now they were on their trail.

The hunt had begun. Maybe alone the Stealth Assassin would have lost them on one point but together with the Bounty Hunter no one would be able to hide from them. Not even with a lead of one year.

Rikimaru made sure to pay Gondar well, especially because it took them almost a month to get near the group. But it meant that in one month they had made up eleven months of time. The Assassin was extremely impressed by the skill of the Hunter. He had known that he was good, but this was really awesome.

The closer they got, the more impatient the Stealth Assassin grew. He wanted to see his girl again, to hold her and make sure that she was okay. And he wanted to kill the bastards who had taken her and destroyed everything that belonged to her. They knew that she was still alive because she had been seen with the group. And they knew that she at least looked unharmed.

They were in some smaller mountains now, a few trees and bushes growing on the red earth, the ground dry and stony. They had left the last town about an hour ago with extremely precise directions about where the group had headed. They seemed not to want to get to a specific location but were travelling around, doing jobs here and there.

It was growing darker slowly as the sun was setting. Rikimaru would normally have made a break now but first, the Bounty Hunter could see extremely well in the dark and second, they were so near to his girl that the Assassin knew that he would never be able to sleep. So they could as well move on. And use the dark of the night to their advantage.

The sound of voices and laughter guided them as they ran through the mountains towards the group of undead. They didn't understand their language.

Slowing down, they silently crept the last feet to the camping creatures. Then they watched. The group they had been following had met another group of undead and now there were almost twenty of the ugly creatures, in parts sitting around a fire and talking while others build tents or lay on the ground sleeping.

The Stealth Assassin would have liked nothing more but to charge in and kill them all. But twenty of them were definitely too many. He was good, but there was always the chance that they had some way to detect him even when he was invisible and they were probably all stronger than him when it came to pure strength. If only one of them got hold of him and he wasn't able to get away he would be screwed. And the Bounty Hunter was like him, assassinating his victims from the shadows when they didn't expect it and not challenging them in an open fight.

They could try to get them one after the other but they still had to be careful and only take those that were on the edge of the camp. It could take them days. So for now they waited and watched. Rikimaru scanned the camp for his girl. She had to be here. There were a few smaller creatures between the undead and two of them were women. They were filthy and ragged but the Assassin was sure that none of them was his girl. He was growing a little frantic with the thought that they were too late, that something had happened and he would never see his girl again.

The Bounty Hunter laid a hand on his shoulder. His fingers squeezed and he did something completely unexpected: he reassured him. "Relax. If she isn't here maybe they brought her to another place. We will find her."

And just then two women left one of the tents already standing. They were as filthy as the other two but Rikimaru recognized his girl immediately. Jayne looked nothing like the woman he had left in the forest. Her hair was cropped short, her dress was dirty, as was her whole body, and tattered. She moved carefully and looked at the ground all the time. She was someone, who didn't want to draw any attention and who would prefer to be invisible.

Every time one of the undead wanted something, she did it without hesitation. And she never raised her eyes to look at someone. She was obviously a slave. The Assassin kept watching her, looking for injuries on her body. From what he could tell she had none and for a slave she looked relatively good, especially given the fact that she had been with the group for about a year now. He had seen slaves that had looked worse after only a few weeks.

He was unbelievably relieved when he saw that she was alive. They had finally found her. Now he simply had to get her out of that camp and then he could kill the entire group of undead, one after the other, bringing his wrath down upon them and avenging the horrible treatment his girl had had to suffer. He didn't care how long it would take him and if he had to follow the group for weeks to be able to get the ones that were dump enough to veer away from the rest. He would kill them all. After he had freed his girl.

It grew darker. Rikimaru had to rely on Gondar for vision because he couldn't see any better in the dark than a normal human. The Bounty Hunter kept watching the camp.

"They are putting all the women in the middle of the camp. They are binding their hands and feet and they seem to be very thorough."

After about another hour, the Assassin was growing more and more impatient, the activities in the camp had died down.

"There are five undead on watch tonight. Four are always on their posts while one is circling through the camp. If we move at the right time we can kill one, go in, get your girl and be out before the one circling realizes that one of his companions is dead. We have to be real quick and quite, though. I know that this isn't a problem for you, but think your girl will be up to it? Think she will follow us without making a fuss about it?"

Rikimaru wasn't sure. She had only seen him once and that had been a long time ago. But they had to try.

They crept through the dark, weapons ready, as they neared the camp and the first guard. Killing him was easy, so they didn't seem to have anything to detect invisible creatures, at least not on the edge of the camp. Still the two remained in the darkest shadows whenever possible.

The women were all asleep. The Bounty Hunter remained standing, watchful, while the Assassin knelt next to his girl. He put one hand over her mouth to keep her from making a sound. Then he leaned as close as he could. "I'm here to save you. Be quite and I will get you out." Looking down at her, he saw that her eyes were open, fixed on him. He didn't know if she recognized him but he didn't really have time for that now. He cut the ropes between her hands and feet quickly, not moving his own hand from her mouth. "Don't make a sound. And follow me. Okay?"

The girl nodded, her eyes now cast at the ground. "Good. Come."

Standing up, the Stealth Assassin pulled her with him and then guided her into the shadows where the Bounty Hunter was still standing. The girl wouldn't be able to see him, but Rikimaru could and without another word he followed the Hunter. He had taken her by the hand and guided her from shadow to shadow. They had to be even more careful now, since she was visible, as was the Assassin.

At one point they had to wait for one of the guards to pass them. Rikimaru felt the girl at his back. She remained silent throughout it all, coming with him without giving any resistance.

They made it out of the camp without any problems. When they were far enough away the Bounty Hunter circled back to hide any tracks they had left and to check if someone was following them.

Rikimaru looked at the girl, still holding her hand, and didn't know what to do or say. She wasn't looking at him but at the ground in front of his feet. She didn't move and didn't say anything. Gave no indication that she had recognised him or that she realized that he had just freed her from the undead.

"Ahem, are you okay?" She nodded once, nothing in her posture changing. The Assassin frowned. She was nothing like the girl in the forest anymore, not that it was any surprise after a year as a slave. He just hoped that maybe time would bring his girl back. Probably lots of time.

He would have liked to hug her and to hold her close but since he didn't know what the undead had done to her he thought it would be better not to. So he just held her hand.

Gondar stepped out of the shadows. "No one was following us and now they won't be able to anymore, no tracks left to find us. I'm glad that we found her and I wish you good luck. If you need me again, call for me. Bye." With that he ported out, leaving the Assassin and the girl alone now that his job was done.

"I will port us into an inn now to get a few things. Then I will take you to a house, which I know is safe." The girl didn't respond to his explanation.

And she didn't respond to anything the Stealth Assassin did over the next hour, except when he asked her a direct question, but even then only with a nod or shake of her head, or when he told her to do something. It hurt him almost bodily to see her like that, to see his girl reduced to this quiet and obedient creature.

Before he could deal with it, though, he wanted to get her to a safe place. He knew of a few houses that might be good and chose one that was least like hers had been. It was in a swamp, only accessible by a small path. The air was hot and filled with insects but the house was nice and since it was under some kind of spell, the inside was always cool and no bug, flea or mosquito was able to get inside.

It hadn't been used in a while and Rikimaru had to put a few things in order. He started to move around but the girl kept standing beside the door, right where he had left her. "You can sit down if you want." That got him no reaction and the Assassin sighed. "Go and sit on one of the chairs."

She moved, obeying his command. Gritting his teeth, he turned away from her. He would make something to eat and then he would try to talk to her. He didn't have very high hopes about the outcome but he had to do something.


	6. Chapter 6

The Stealth Assassin had been right. The girl didn't respond to him in any way. Neither this day nor the next one. Or the one after. The following weeks were the worst of his entire life. He tried to be patient, to talk to her as often as possible and not only about important things, just to talk to her. He gave her as little commands as possible, always trying to get her to do something without him having to order her to do it. But she wouldn't do it until it was a command.

He didn't leave her alone once during those weeks, even though he had the urge to hunt the undead, who had taken her, and kill them all. The more he saw how damaged his girl was the more pain he wanted to cause them before he killed them. He wanted them to suffer. But he wouldn't leave her alone now. It will simply take some time, he told himself, for her to realize that she was no slave anymore, that she could do what she wanted, have a normal life again. And he did everything he could to make her see it.

But it was tough and when she was sleeping he often sat in front of the house, frustrated, angry and with a feeling of helplessness that wouldn't go away.

He had his girl back, but only her body and he didn't know how to get her spirit back, too.

On one of those nights, just before Rikimaru was about to get to bed, too, mentally exhausted from all those weeks of getting absolutely no reaction from his girl, he saw a small cat creeping through the grass of the swamp. It was dirty brown, with black stripes, and it was definitely a house cat. It was thin, probably not getting much to eat out here, and as the Assassin watched it trying to catch a fat dragonfly, he had an idea.

A bit of meat and a bowl of milk. With that he approached the cat as it was about to pounce on another dragonfly. The creature looked at the Assassin with wide eyes, its body completely unmoving. Slowly he knelt down, placing the meat and the milk on the ground before backing away.

The cat watched his every move, eying him as well as the food. It was clearly unsure if it was safe to eat the meat but in the end its hunger won.

The cat came back every night now and Rikimaru fed it. And, in complete contrast to the days with his girl, it took only a week for him to get the cat to trust him enough to let him pet it. The Stealth Assassin smiled when he heard the purring of the small creature as it nuzzled his hand, rubbing its head against his palm.

He waited two more days. Then he didn't send Jayne to bed as usual but took her outside with him at the time he fed the cat now. It was there already, lying on a dry patch of earth and watching the house.

Rikimaru gave the girl the meat. "Sit down and hold the food out for the cat." He sat next to her, placing the bowl with milk in front of him. The cat was used to him but a little weary of the girl. But the food was there for the taking and so it didn't hesitate very long. The girl didn't move, without a command that told her what to do she was sometimes like a statue. But then, when the cat had eaten the meat and licked over the fingers that had held it, one single tear slid over the girl's cheek.

The Stealth Assassin took a deep breath and then he did something he had never done in his life before: he sang. Maybe it was more like humming and it was definitely not very good, but the tunes were close enough to the melody he wanted to sing.

Another tear, then the girl shuddered. Gently taking her hand, he kept humming. The cat sat down, watching the scene in front of her. The girl shuddered again, closed her eyes and then she really started to cry. These were the first emotions the Assassin had seen from her since he had rescued her.

 _Thank god_ , he thought. And when she turned towards him, sobbing and crying, he held her, so very glad that she had _finally_ reacted to something.

She cried for a long time, soaking his shirt with her tears.

Rikimaru stroked her hair and rocked her while he murmured nonsensical things. He didn't know if it was of any use but he had never had to comfort anyone and he didn't know what else to do. So he kept sitting in front of the house in the middle of the swamp, holding his girl while she cried.

Finally she grew quieter, calming slowly down. She didn't move away from the Assassin and when her breathing was almost normal again, her sobs having died down, she still clutched at him, her fists grabbing his shirt and her face buried in the crook of his neck.

"You came for me." Her voice was hoarse, the words very low.

"Of course. I would have done _anything_ to find you."

The girl was silent for long minutes. "I wasn't sure about it."

The Stealth Assassin thought she wanted to say more, but she didn't. And it was okay. She had finally talked to him and he had hope again. Even if she would never be like the girl in the forest again, he was just glad that she wasn't this numb and aboulic creature anymore. And if she got like that again he at least knew how to get her out of it, now. It was a progress.

"You don't have to doubt ever again. I'll always come for you, no matter where you are. I promise."

She moved away a little and looked up at him. Her eyes were red and swollen, tears still shimmering at the corners. And the Assassin could see the fear inside. It was a deep rooted fear, one he fully intended to chase away, even if it took him his whole life. It was partly his fault that it was there and he would make it right again. His girl should fear nothing and she should definitely never doubt him, never doubt how important she was to him. With him by her side there was nothing to be afraid of.

"Don't say something like that." Her voice was only a whisper as she looked on the ground. "You don't know what they made of me. I am broken."

A wave of anger swept over the Assassin. Anger about the undead and what they had done to his sweet little girl. Anger wouldn't help her, though, and he pushed it away. "I don't care." He pulled her closer again, back into the hug, and rubbed his cheek over the top of her head. "I don't care."

From that day on it got better. Not constantly, but definitely noticeable over the weeks.

Rikimaru saw how his girl struggled with everything but he helped her as best as he could. At least it seemed as if she hadn't been raped, physical contact being no problem at all. And so he used it to his advantage, holding her hand and hugging her often, stroking her hair or simply sitting by her side with their bodies touching from hip to shoulder. She never shied away from him.

Everything else was hard, though. But the Assassin was patient. They had all the time they wanted, they didn't need to rush anything. His wish for vengeance was there but it had time, knew what he had to look for now.

First she began to do things of her own accord, then she stopped looking at the ground all the time, and then she started talking again.

One morning the Assassin woke up and the bed of the girl was empty. He got up and, not seeing her inside of the house, stepped out of the door. There she was, sitting on the ground and petting the cat, which still appeared every day. The animal licked her hand and the girl smiled. It was only the hint of a smile but it was definitely there.

The Stealth Assassin felt unbelievably relieved at this sight. It looked so much like a scene from out of the forest from before. The cat turned its head, looking at Rikimaru and the girl followed its gaze. The smile on her face got a little wider when she saw him and it took his breath. Her hair was not like before, shorter, her features still sharp from too little food but her eyes were the same, as was her smile. She was unbelievably beautiful. He smiled back at her. "Good morning."

This day was the best in the last two years. The girl was in high spirits and Rikimaru enjoyed it immensely. And he thought that it wouldn't take long until he could leave her to hunt the undead. He already felt restless from time to time. Sitting around in one place and doing nothing was something he could do for a while but definitely not forever.

They sat over dinner when he addressed the topic of leaving her alone for a few days. She lived alone her whole life and the house here was relatively safe, so she should be fine. Of course he knew that it wasn't that easy. Not anymore.

The girl looked at him with wide eyes. Then she lowered her gaze. Rikimaru couldn't see her expression properly when she nodded. "Okay." But she didn't sound okay and something was not right. So he rounded the table to stand next to her. With one hand under her chin he tilted her face up so she had to look at him. The fear in her eyes was back. It had been completely gone the whole day, but now it was back. And the Assassin felt like an ass for putting it there. Again. Nevertheless he tried to explain it to her. "I want to avenge you. The undead have taken you and I want to kill them all for that. I will come back every day, you won't be alone for very long."

"But..." her voice was wavering a little. "...what if your staying is more important to me than you extracting a revenge I don't need?"

The Stealth Assassin frowned. "You don't feel the need to take vengeance against them? They have destroyed your whole life! You can't let them simply live with what they have done to you."

"Vengeance is never worth the cost for the one who takes it. Never. Have you thought about what it would do to you to kill them? Or to me, knowing that I am to blame for their death?" She shook her head a little. "I am not a vengeful creature and I honestly don't care what happens to them. I just don't want you to leave me for something unimportant like that."

That was something completely new for the Assassin. He'd been given so many jobs from creatures who wanted revenge for one thing or the other that he had never thought someone could not be like that. He had only known this one way all his life and now this small human girl told him that there was a different path.

She really didn't care for vengeance, he could see it in her eyes. For all they had done, she didn't feel the need to give them at least some of the pain and fear she had had to endure back. She was strong. Stronger than he had thought, because he knew that he would never be able to let someone live, who had made him suffer like that. And though he still didn't fully understand it, still wanted to kill them for what they had done, it was _her_ revenge and if she didn't want it, if she wanted him to let them alone, he would abide by her wish. "Are you sure? Because I can wait and go in a year or in ten years. I can find them anywhere and kill them at a moment's notice. It doesn't have to be now if you are still too afraid of being alone."

But she shook her head again. "I'm sure. I don't want you to kill them. Or hurt them in any way. Not now and not ever. Just try to let it go because it honestly isn't worth it."

Rikimaru smiled at her. "You are awesome." He didn't know if he could be like her and just don't want to take revenge, but for her he would try. He thought that he would do anything for her, she just had to name it. Somehow, without her even wanting to, she had made him hers.

The girl flushed. She hesitated. "Does that mean you won't go?"

"Not for that, no."

She sighed, her whole body relaxing. "Thank you." When she looked at him, she smiled again, this hint of a smile that promised everything was going to be well again. It made the Assassin unbelievably happy, even more after he had seen the fear in her eyes only moments ago. When he didn't step back but didn't say anything more, either, and just kept staring at her, she seemed to get a little nervous.

She started to say something, then pressed her lips together, having changed her mind. The movement, though, drew his gaze to her mouth. And this time when he wanted to kiss her, he didn't stop. He moved slowly, giving her plenty of time to tell him should she not want it.

She didn't.

When she realised what he was about to do, her eyes grew wider for a second, before she closed them. She tilted her face upward a fraction and Rikimaru smiled, pleased that she not only not moved away but even moved towards him a little.

The Assassin was gentle, looking for the slightest sign that Jayne might feel uncomfortable.

When his lips touched the girl's, the Assassin shuddered. They felt so soft underneath his and he suddenly realized that he hadn't kissed anyone since he had been on the clearing in the forest for the second time. The girl had been way too young, then, and Rikimaru hadn't even seen her as anything as a little girl. But somehow, on a completely subconscious level, he had waited for her. Had waited over ten years without even realizing it.

His body sprang to attention at the first touch, wanting desperately to rush this and take what he had been waiting for. But he was an assassin, the wants and needs of his body being nothing to him. He was in perfect control as he began to nibble on her lower lip before slowly backing away a little.

The girl looked dazed, her eyes still half closed but then she began to smile, bright and beautiful. She looked up at Rikimaru and he almost kissed her again. He stopped himself. He had to go slow, had to be careful not to rush anything so she wouldn't be frightened.

And so, over the next days, he stole one kiss after the other but never pressed for anything more. The girl smiled again and one morning the Assassin thought he heard her humming as she fed the cat.


	7. Chapter 7

The better the girl got the more restless the Stealth Assassin grew. Here, in the house in the swamp, was absolutely nothing for him to do. The girl occupied herself with various things but he got more bored from day to day. He had to do something or he would go crazy.

The girl was sitting in front of the house and the Assassin sat down next to her. She turned her face towards him and he gave her a short kiss. Her smile told him that she had aimed for that. She took his hand and traced tiny circles on his skin with her thumb.

"I want to go into town today." Rikimaru said. He watched the girl closely but she just looked at him, as relaxed as before. So he continued. "I want to get a few things and check my mail. Do you think you can be alone for a few hours? I'll definitely be back before nightfall."

In complete contrast to her reaction the last time he wanted to leave her, she now smiled at him. "Of course I can be alone. It's absolutely okay for you to do things beside sit around the house all day."

The Assassin blinked, a little astonished about her readiness to let him go. But maybe the last time had simply been too soon. Or it had been because of the purpose behind it. She seemed to know what he was thinking, which was astonishing as well because as an assassin he had learned to mask his feelings. "It wasn't because you wanted to leave me that I was afraid. It was because it was your mission for vengeance during which the undead took me. It felt too much like a repetition of that time. You leaving to take revenge."

That made things easier. After another kiss the Assassin ported into the inn. He had received many letters and was half of the day occupied with sorting them. The ones he wanted to answer he took with him because he could do that as well in the swamp. Then he went into town to get a few things. The most important was a device he had heard of, which could be used to call someone no matter where he was. He wanted to give his girl one so she would be able to reach him every time, everywhere. Because though she had been fine when he had left her, the Assassin felt not particularly good with her being alone. If he didn't know any better he would say he was afraid of something happening to her again. So he would get her such a device and she would be able to call him in case of an emergency.

Rikimaru didn't get the device but was able to place an order for it. He hurried to get everything else he wanted to be able to return to his girl as fast as possible. The way back would take him longer because he didn't have anything to port directly into the swamp. He would have to think about a solution for that as well because even when Jayne had the device and called him it would take him way too long to reach her. But first things first.

The sun began to set when the Assassin ran through the swamp, knowing exactly where to put his feet and therefore able to go fast. He didn't hear anything as he drew nearer and though it wasn't abnormal, since the girl hadn't sang a single song since her rescue, Rikimaru's heart started to beat faster in fear.

When he turned the corner of the house and saw her, relief flooded him. He stood there for a moment, still invisible, and just looked at her, enjoying the sight of her. He turned visible and the girl whirled around, smiling when she saw him. In that moment he knew he belonged to her, body and soul, because he had never been happier than in that moment, when he came home from a day in town and his girl smiled at him. He had never known what love was but it hit him that this had to be it.

He kissed her and she melted against him, sighing softly and looping her arms around his neck, her body pressing close. She was soft and warm and she felt unbelievably good in his arms. Rikimaru deepened the kiss, feeling strangely vulnerable at this moment, certain that the girl must see how he felt, feel how he felt, and not sure if he should like it or not. No one ever knew what he felt, as it should be with an assassin, but the girl had already been able to before, so why should it be any different now. But she didn't say anything and nothing in her posture and behaviour suggested anything when they separated and he looked down at her.

Only seconds before he had been afraid of her seeing his feelings for her, but now he was a little disappointed that she hadn't. He almost said it but he stopped himself before he could open his mouth. He told himself that it was to protect her and he didn't tell her because it might be too much for her after her slavery. But in truth he was afraid. She might not feel the same and then he would stand there, having said words he had never said to anyone else, feeling like an idiot.

And so, when she asked if everything was all right, he simply told her what he had done in town, while they went into the house he told her about the device he wanted to get for her. It would be there the next day and he wanted to get it then.

"That's okay." The girl stirred in a pot with some stew she had made. "I was only a little afraid alone. I'm sure it will get better every time."

Rikimaru was glad that she got along without him being there the whole time. He watched her. She looked better, she had gained weight, she didn't look haunted and afraid all the time anymore and her whole attitude had changed. She was becoming her former self again more and more. The only thing that visually remained was her short hair. It was growing but it was still a tousled mass of brown strands most times. _It looks good on her_ , the Assassin thought. The long hair had been too brave and too ordinary, this hairstyle now, though it wasn't intended, made her look like the always cheerful girl she had been and was becoming again.

Sitting at the table, the Stealth Assassin looked through the letters he had brought and began to answer them. There was one from the Bounty Hunter, in which he asked if everything was well. And though he and the Hunter had never been very close he smiled at the short letter. Gondar had always been curious but Rikimaru was sure there was some real concern for the girl's wellbeing after their rescue mission.

"Is this your native language?" The girl stood next to him and was looking at the sheet of paper.

"Yes, it is."

She shook her head. "I don't understand it. When did you learn my language?"

"After you left the first letter for me. I went to someone who translated it for me but since I didn't want others to know what you wrote I decided to learn it."

"You learned it for me?" The girl sounded astonished. Rikimaru shrugged.

"Yeah."

Smiling she sat down. "Do you have another pen for me? And a piece of paper?"

Rikimaru gave her both. She didn't ask anything else and so he kept writing. But when he saw her with the pen in her hand he was reminded of the quill, ink and paper he had given her once, a thought struck him: he hadn't gotten her anything from town today. It was the first time since he had known her that he didn't have a present for her. She didn't seem to mind, but the Assassin thought it kind of thoughtless of himself. Especially since here in the swamp was even less to do than in her house in the forest and he could have easily bought her something to pass some time.

Since he wanted to go into town the next day anyway he would get her something, then. A book maybe, and paper and a new quill.

Depending on how good she felt with him gone from time to time, and depending on how the device worked, he could start working again. He wouldn't do jobs that would take him away more than one day at a time but he could do smaller jobs. Or ones where he could head back every evening. But first he had to test the device because otherwise he wouldn't feel good leaving his girl alone.


	8. Chapter 8

The town was extremely busy the next day. The Stealth Assassin didn't like so many people on such a limited space but he had to at least get the device and a present for Jayne. Then he could leave again.

His girl hadn't been as cheerful as the day before but well enough for him to leave for a few hours. The device was ready and he got quill, ink and paper fast enough. On his way out of town, he passed the shop of a tailor and decided to order a few new dresses as well. He had given her a few when they had reached the swamp the first day, but they didn't fit properly and they were nothing special. Nothing to feel beautiful with. Rikimaru had a few wishes regarding the dresses and so he had to order them. It would take a few weeks, the tailor said.

On this day, they tried the device. In the swamp it worked perfectly and the next days the Assassin went to different places all over the world, which he could reach fast and be back relatively fast, too, to see if it worked the way he wanted it to. It did. When the girl pressed a button on her device, the device the Assassin carried began to make a sound. It was loud enough that he couldn't not hear it and he could head back into the swamp immediately.

It made Rikimaru feel much better to know that his girl could reach him in case something happened and she needed help. He grew more and more relaxed every time he left her alone. He started to do jobs again but now it felt different. He had always lived only for the day, and only for himself. Now he looked forward to when he had finished his job and could go back to his girl. When he would see her smile again and could steel a kiss or two. It felt like coming home.

For a few weeks it went on like that. The Stealth Assassin was happy how well his girl recovered. She was smiling often again and except for her shorter hair nothing visible remained from her year as slave. Sometimes she had a haunted look in her eyes or she would cast her eyes onto the ground, getting this submissive stance. But those times grew more infrequent as time went by.

The consequence of it was, though, that the Assassin was still careful around her. He kept their physical contact light. He kissed her often, held hands and they cuddled, but not once did he push for anything more. It wasn't as if he didn't want, but he didn't want to scare her. He had never had anything resembling a relationship and sometimes he didn't know how to behave. He didn't even know if they were in a relationship since he had no knowledge of such things and he was reluctant to ask the girl. She had probably as little knowledge about it as him, since she had been living alone in a forest for almost all her life.

Maybe it would have remained like that for a long time but one day changed it all.

The Stealth Assassin was doing a job where he had to find some ring in a cave, which was guarded by an ancient warrior. Mindless task but well paid. He was just creeping towards the entrance of a cave he thought might be the right one, when the device in his backpack started ringing.

He froze for a second and then he moved as fast as he could. Teleport into the inn, deactivate his device, run to the flight master to get him as near as possible to the swamp. As soon as his feet touched the ground he began a mad dash towards the house and his girl.

It was the first time since they had tried the device that she had used it and Rikimaru was sure that there was a reason for it. His heart was hammering in his chest and if he had had breath to spare he would have cursed himself that he couldn't run faster. About a mile from the house he slowed down, his breath heavy. He had to be invisible and not only his body. He had to be silent as well because if someone or something was there he could be detected if he was too loud. And if he had to fight he had to be ready for it and not half dead from running.

His palms were sweaty and he had to wipe them on his clothes so he had a good grip on his blades. His heartbeat didn't slow down even now that he had stopped running.

He listened for something unusual but didn't hear anything that didn't belong here. He circled the house and found footstep from a human or human like creature. They came from the opposite side of where Rikimaru neared the house, led to the door and then from the door back the way they had come. Someone had been here and had looked into the house but had left again without any detours. Rikimaru followed the footsteps for about a minute to see if he found the creature that had left them. But the creature had mounted some animal and since the animal had left no tracks it had probably been a flying mount and the creature was gone. At least not waiting behind some rock to attack.

Now the Assassin could only hope that the creature hadn't harmed or taken his girl. The footsteps hadn't looked as if the creature had carried anything heavy and since Rikimaru had found no trace of his girl, she had to be in the house.

Back at the house Rikimaru took a deep breath before he entered. The inside was a little shady, as always due to the small windows. Everything looked undisturbed. But there was no sign of his girl. Had she been taken after all?

His breath caught in his throat and his eyes burned. The grip on his blades was so strong his hands started to ache. He felt panic rise in his chest. It wouldn't help him any to freak out now and get emotional and so he forced himself to close his eyes, loosen his grip on his weapons and take deep and especially even breaths.

When he was halfway calm, he opened his eyes and took another look around. Everything was as it always was, it didn't look as if someone had been here.

Before doing anything else, the Stealth Assassin did something extremely wise: he called her.

"Jayne!"

He waited a few moments and just before he wanted to call again, he heard rustling from underneath the floor in one corner of the house. Some of the boards lifted and the head of his girl appeared. Her eyes were wide, her hair even more tussled than normally and dirt all over her.

Rikimaru dropped his weapons and ran to her, lifting her out of her hiding place and hugging her hard. He buried his face in her neck, breathing her scent in. He had never been so afraid in his whole life and he had never been happier than at this moment when he held her.

"Are you alright?" His hands wandered over her body checking for injuries but she seemed to be unharmed. The girl nodded to his question. "What happened?"

"I was sitting outside, petting the cat. It perked up its ears and its hackles rose. Then she hissed in a direction, though I couldn't see anything wrong there. I didn't want to take any chances and so I went into the house and down the trap door. I used the device, just in case. A few minutes later I heard someone opening the door. I didn't know if it was you and so I stayed hidden. Whoever it was, he walked through the house once but didn't take anything as far as I could hear. Then he went out again. Then I waited for you. That's all." Her voice was steady and there was no fear in her eyes. She was composed and not the least bit disturbed.

In contrast to the Assassin, who was shocked at how lucky she had been that the cat had warned her. Not to mention that she had known there was a trap door. Even he hadn't known that.

The girl raised her hand and laid her palm on his cheek. "You are shaking. Is everything alright?"

The Stealth Assassin felt like he was falling apart. He could only shake his head before he wrapped his arms around her again. He needed to feel her, needed to assure himself that she was okay and still here. "I don't want to lose you again." Even his voice was shaking.

"Everything is fine. We don't know if I was in danger. And nothing happened." She pressed her body closer, her arms around his torso.

But it wasn't enough. He needed more. He kissed her and for the first time he wasn't patient and careful. His emotions were too raw and he was consumed by this fear of losing her. His hands roamed her body but through the layers of cloth he couldn't really feel her. He pulled on the cord holding her dress together and tried to get it off. His movements were too fast, _he_ was moving too fast. When he impatiently ripped at the cloth and the girl gasped, he froze. At this tiny sound his mind started to work again, slowly clearing the haze the fear had laid over him.

She looked at him with wide eyes, her dress almost torn apart by his impatience, her lips swollen from his kiss. He groaned and closed his eyes while trying to disentangle his hands from her clothes. He had lost control. That had never happened before. He was always in control, _always_. But the fear of losing her had made him snap. God, he hoped he hadn't scared her.

He wanted to pull away because though he was still shaking, his mind was clear enough now to remind him of the fact that he had to be careful with his girl, that he couldn't rush things like that. But Jayne wouldn't let go. Of course he could break free but obviously she didn't want to let him go and since he didn't want to harm her, he stayed. He tried to take even breaths, to calm down. As she had said, everything was fine.

Tentatively at first her hands started to move, stroking over his back, then his arms, up to his neck and back down again. She was petting him and it made it all easier. The Assassin laid his forehead on her shoulder, a little shudder running through his body as her nails scraped his neck involuntarily. "Rikimaru." She didn't sound scared. "You don't have to stop because of me. I…" now she hesitated before taking a deep breath. "I would really like to have sex with you, but you have to show me. I don't know what to do. But I think that is what you wanted, a few seconds ago. You don't have to stop."

He shuddered again because _of course_ did he want that. But he also didn't want to scare her, to hurt her, to do anything wrong. They were getting along so well at the moment and he didn't want to ruin it. "Riki?" Her hands stopped moving, her body grew tense, insecurity evident in her voice. When he looked at her, he could see this insecurity in her features as well and damn if he didn't want to chase it away.

The Assassin kissed her again, not as desperate as before but by far not as careful as normal. And with a soft sigh she melted against him. She opened her mouth and welcomed him in, her fingers grabbing at his shoulders as she tried to press closer.

And though he was still afraid of how it would change their relationship, the need to feel her was strong and her wish on top of it, he didn't have a chance to resist. Always in control was gone. The short break had gotten him enough control over his body not to rush this but there was no going back now. Especially not when she made those tiny sounds in the back of her throat and her body rubbed against his. And when he shrugged his shirt off and her nails dug into his skin. He groaned and guided her backwards to the bed, pulling her dress off on the way.

The girl didn't wear an underdress, only thin white pants. She was almost completely naked now and Rikimaru revelled in the feel of her skin against his. She kept rubbing her body against his as if she was still trying to get closer, as if she wanted more. He was so hard and it had been so very long since he had been with someone. She wasn't trying to get him off but the way she moved against him, the way her hips ground against his shaft, it was too much. Before he even realized what was about to happen, he exploded, coming while he still had his pants on and before she had even touched him.

He shuddered and groaned, pressing her closer with his hands on her backside, grinding against her. His breathing heavy, he looked at her and was more than glad that she was a virgin and hopefully couldn't tell how embarrassing that just had been. On the other side, it wasn't like this would stay him any. He was still as hard as before but he wasn't as desperate as before. He had definitely gotten calmer now, a smile curving around his lips.

Rikimaru laid his girl on the bed and pulled her panties off. With his own pants he wiped the cum from his body before lying next to her to resume kissing. His hands explored her body while his mouth feasted on her lips. She made soft sighs and arched into his touch and when he touched her between her legs, she was unbelievably wet. So ready for him. He circled her clit, enjoying how she moved against him, how her hands dug into his shoulders, before breaching her opening with one finger. Tight and hot. Rikimaru shuddered. And took his time to prepare her.

He wondered, even if it was the first time she had sex, if it would be her first orgasm. He suspected it wasn't, because she seemed to know a tad too good what her body wanted, her movements to precise against his fingers, being not in the least unsure about what was to come. She had done it herself, then. The thought of her own fingers doing what he was doing at the moment was hot and when he felt that she was close to climax, he decided he had prepared her enough.

Rikimaru lay between Jayne's legs, braced on his lower arms, still kissing her while he pushed into her wet heat. He moved slowly, looking for any sign of discomfort. He knew that he couldn't avoid it completely but he wanted to make this experience as pleasurable as possible for her.

She frowned a little, her body tensing, but when he stopped moving she relaxed again after a few seconds. And when he began to slowly thrust, she met him, stroke for stroke, moving with him. It was heaven and Rikimaru lost himself in the act, in _her_ , all rational thoughts gone. Normally he was more in control but he felt still too raw from his earlier fear. So he let it all go, let himself go.

When she came, he followed close behind, feeling her climax shoving him over the edge as well.


	9. Chapter 9

Rikimaru woke the next morning to a beautiful sound he hadn't heard for a long time. Still half asleep he smiled before he registered what it was that he was hearing. His girl was singing! She was outside and she sang the song he had heard the first time he had seen her in her orchard on the clearing in the forest. It was so long ago but it was still his favourite song.

He reached for his pants but they were kind of icky with the now dried cum. He pulled a new one out of one of the trunks in the house and then he silently crept to the door to peer outside.

His girl was sitting in the grass with a dress in her lap, patching some holes. She looked content and carefree, the sun making her hair shine in a soft brown with lighter streaks, her eyes sparkle and her skin glow. She was the most beautiful creature Rikimaru had ever seen and he couldn't get enough of looking at her. His eyes travelled over her, now knowing what lay underneath the cloth, how magnificent her body was, her soft skin, her perfect curves.

The tunes of the song wafted around him and he felt enchanted by this tiny girl. Without a conscious thought he walked towards her and sat next to her on the grass. She stopped singing and smiled at him.

The Stealth Assassin leaned forward and kissed her. And before he could stop himself, before his mind could conjure the fear he had had before, he said the words that laid his soul bare: "Jayne. I love you. I love you with all I have. You make my heart beat and my soul sing. You are my safe place, where you are, there I feel at home. I think about you first thing when I wake up and last thing before I fall asleep. When I'm away I want nothing more than to be with you again as fast as possible. I could watch you for hours and listen to your singing forever. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you, just to see you smiling. You are the part of me that has been missing my whole life and only now I feel complete. I belong to you. Forever."

The girl looked at him with wide eyes. She laid her palm on his cheek, her thumb stroking over his skin. "Riki, that is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you. I'm sorry, but I don't have such nice words for you."

The Assassin froze. But before he could react otherwise, she continued, now smiling. "I love you, too. I simply cannot put it into such beautiful sentences. But," now she laid her second hand on his other cheek and pulled his face closer, "just because I don't say it with so many words doesn't mean it is less true." Then she kissed him. It was a tender kiss and Rikimaru thought he could feel how she put her love into that kiss.

His body relaxed again. For a moment there he had thought she didn't feel the same. He had thought she might make him look like an idiot. But he had had to tell her. He had become a love-sick fool, not the best trait for an assassin, but when his girl kissed him like that, when she had said she loved him, too, it wasn't so bad.

They separated but didn't move apart, their bodies still touching. The girl smiled. "I almost cannot believe that someone like you fell in love with someone like me, but I'm really happy. I think this is the best day of my life." She slung her arms around his body and laid her head on his shoulder. Rikimaru pulled her on his lap, wanting her as close as possible. "I think this is the best day of my life, too."

They cuddled a little in silence. The Stealth Assassin was glad everything was well. He had been so scared about telling her but he was glad he had done it. He was so happy at the moment, he thought he could fly. Everything felt perfect.

She straddled him to kiss him again, which made the skirt of her dress slip high. She had never been the one to initiate a kiss before. Maybe she had been afraid, due to her inexperience. Or his confession of love had made her more confident. Whatever it was, he thought he had been a fool to wait so long with both, the sex and the confession. Because he liked her new confidence.

The girl began to rub against Rikimaru's growing arousal, making it absolutely clear what she wanted. And who was he to deny her a wish? Slowly he undressed her, taking his time to caress every part of her body. She was beautiful and he enjoyed looking at her, touching her. When he laid her on the ground, him on top, and pushed into her, she was hot and wet, so ready for him. She sighed and lifted her hips to pull him in deeper. The Assassin shuddered at the pleasure he felt about simply being inside of her.

He kissed her and started to move, slowly gliding in and out of her heat. She sighed into his mouth and grabbed his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin from time to time. She moved with him and it didn't take long before she tensed for a second and then came, holding him close while waves of pleasure made her body vibrate underneath him. The Stealth Assassin was in control throughout it all. He wouldn't join her yet but get her to at least one more peak. He had enough self-control for that. So he remained still, waiting for her to relax again.

But then his girl moved her hands to his head, brushing through his hair. That by itself was no problem but her fingers found the base of his horns and though he had absolutely no feeling in the horns, the base was extremely sensitive. The fingers of one hand tapped against one base lightly while the other hand circled around the second one, rubbing over the place where horn and head met.

That was the moment all his control dissolved. He just _had_ to move. Pushing in deep he groaned, the hands on his horns intensifying everything until there was nothing except the pleasure his girl brought him. When he came it was like nothing he had ever felt before, the orgasm ripped from his body making him almost black out with its intensity.

Rikimaru felt completely drained, too weak to hold himself up and not crush Jayne underneath him. So he rolled to the side with the last bit of strength. He had again lost control. He! Somehow his girl was able to pull him out of his ever-present calm. But at least she didn't seem to mind as she cuddled closer now, sighing softly.

They lay on the grass in front of the house, her head resting on his shoulder. They looked in the sky, the girl tracing tiny circles on Rikimaru's arm over her stomach. They were silent for long minutes, both catching their breaths, their heartbeats slowly going back to a normal rate.

"I want to take you to a safer place." The Assassin was thinking about what he had to do to keep her away from harm. Because he couldn't live when he was afraid about someone taking her all the time. And he definitely didn't want to lose her again. So he needed help. He had abilities to hide himself, he could find places that were unknown to anyone but he had nothing to ward such places, to make them more secure or inaccessible. It would be best, if he could place traps around their house and anyone who would try to get through would die or otherwise hindered to get through.

Of course he could build mechanical traps but they could be spotted and disabled. It would be best if it were some kind of magical traps. For that he needed help. He went through all creatures he knew and which would be willing to help him in his head. At the moment he was relaxed and content. It was nice to lie there like that with his girl.

He had never been one for cuddling, he seldom had time for that. And he had never wanted to build a closer relationship with anyone, so what was the use? But now it was perfect, with his girl it was so pleasant, he thought he could stay like that forever.

Who could help him with warding a house and the ground around it? There weren't many who were able to create magical traps. And even less, who he wanted to ask for help. Because he had to trust the one who helped. He would know the way through the traps.

Then he had an idea: there was an assassin, a woman, who lived in an extremely secluded place. He didn't know where it was, maybe nobody did. But he knew that she had warded her place with magical traps. He hadn't talked with her very often but he knew that she wasn't interested in anything besides her studies. So she wouldn't care if he had someone he wanted to keep safe.

She wasn't the most approachable of creatures but which assassin was? The Stealth Assassin decided to contact her first. Maybe the Goblin Techies could help, too, but he was a tad too crazy for the Assassin's liking.

It was about two weeks later when an almost-gone-crazy-at-having-to-leave-his-girl-in-the-swamp-alone Rikimaru got a reply from the Templar Assassin. She told to meet him in some small village in the north the Assassin had never been to before. But since he didn't have much room, or patience, for any negotiations at this point he simply went to the flight master and mounted a griffon to get to the village.

He was twitchy and on edge through the whole flight. It would take him too long to get to the house in the swamp in case something was wrong and his girl called him. But she didn't call and the flight didn't take too long. The griffons were extremely fast and it was a good way to travel.

In the village he spotted the Templar Assassin immediately. She was standing in front of an inn, a tiny woman with blond hair by her side, both talking to a huge man with a full beard and pelts as clothes. The blond woman didn't react to the landing griffon. The man looked over and frowned as he saw no one dismounting. The Assassin didn't look but Rikimaru could see the slightest tension appearing in her body. She slipped a little to the side and now she was standing between Rikimaru and the woman.

It was a protective move and though it was useless against the Stealth Assassin, it told him much. The woman was important to the Templar Assassin. He didn't know why she had brought her to the meeting with him because he would never put his girl into a situation where he didn't know the outcome. He could as well be a danger to the Templar Assassin and the woman.

But Rikimaru didn't care about the blonde. Or the bearded man. He walked up to the small group and went visible a few steps away.

The man blinked in astonishment but the Assassin and even the blond woman, who had given absolutely no indication that she had known someone was there, didn't react surprised at all. The woman smiled at him while the Assassin adjusted their positions.

"Hello Templar Assassin." Rikimaru didn't step any closer. They weren't enemies but they hadn't really interacted with each other before. Better safe than sorry. "Thanks for meeting me so fast."

The Assassin simply nodded at him but the blond woman stepped forward, completely ignoring the protectiveness of her companion. She held her hand out to Rikimaru, her smile bright and friendly. "Hey, I'm Rylai. Nice to meet you. Lanaya said you need help with something? Come, we can sit in the inn, I have special privileges there and we can get a room where it is impossible to eavesdrop."

After shaking her hand he followed her inside. He had heard about her, she was the Crystal Maiden, the Queen of Ice.

They discussed the terms of the warding in no time. The Templar Assassin agreed to help him and Rikimaru suspected it had much to do with the Crystal Maiden. The Assassin simply didn't care enough about others to help but the Maiden did. She asked a few personal questions about both the girl and Rikimaru, some of which the Stealth Assassin avoided to answer. The two women didn't need to know anything personal about him to ward a house for him. But he sensed that the helpfulness of the Maiden was strongly connected to her liking him and so he tried to remain as friendly as possible. He would never be like that if the matter would only concern him, but since the safety of Jayne was at stake, he would even kiss the woman's feet if it would gain him what he wanted.

The women agreed to help him ward his house with traps. And though only the Assassin would place the traps, the Maiden would come with her. For some reason she wanted to come. Rikimaru wasn't exactly happy with her wish. He didn't want any more creatures than absolutely necessary to know about the place where he and his girl lived, but he didn't say anything since she had been the one to agree to help him.

They even agreed to directly join him on his way back. The Stealth Assassin had thought about changing places, about getting another house somewhere else before placing traps. But the creature who had been at their house had found nothing and no one else had been there since then, so it was as good a place as any other. The girl was comfortable there and so he had decided to stay.

They flew to the nearest place of the house in the swamp a griffon could reach. The Templar Assassin and the Crystal Maiden sat on a mount together. They definitely were in some kind of relationship, the way they interacted with each other, how the Assassin always wanted to protect the smaller woman, how they cuddled closer on the flying mount. And they looked good together, Rikimaru thought. He wondered how they had met and what had brought them this close together. Because the Templar Assassin, just like himself, wasn't someone looking for a relationship. The Queen of Ice must have had some really good arguments to convince her. But when he saw the Maiden smiling at the Assassin, he realized that she had never had any chance to resist her. Just like himself with Jayne.

For him and Jayne it had taken ten years and more than one situation where he had thought he had lost her. He would like to hear the story of the two women. But they were no friends and he had no right to even ask such a personal question.

In the swamp the Stealth Assassin had to make a conscious effort to remain visible while guiding the women to the house.

His girl was nowhere to be seen but when they stepped on the solid ground around the building she opened the door and stepped outside. She stopped after only two steps, smiling but seemingly unsure about what to do. It would have been awkward with only her and the two assassins, but with the Crystal Maiden in the group it was no problem at all. The Maiden rushed forward, her smile bright, and took her hand. "Hi Jayne, I'm Rylai. I'm here with Lanaya." she pointed at the Templar Assassin. "She'll put a lot of traps around your house to make it safe here. It will take a while so I thought I could get to know you a bit. I'm so curious about the woman who was able to make the Stealth Assassin so protective." She leaned a little closer. "It even seems as if he is in love! That is so cute."

Jayne looked at Rikimaru. Her eyes were wide and she clearly didn't know how to react. The Assassin wasn't so sure either. He was extremely social for an assassin but the Crystal Maiden was different from anyone he had ever met. He felt completely out of his element with her. She had even known which language she had to use.

The Templar Assassin next to him sighed. "Rylai. Can't you see that you are crowding her? Give her some space! She is alone with the Stealth Assassin all the time, you can image she isn't used to the amount of words you just used. She probably hears them in one week normally, not a few minutes."

The Crystal Maiden put her hands on her hips and turned around. She frowned a little. She clearly wanted to say something but then she looked at Rikimaru and her frown vanished. "Yeah, you are probably right. I'll just sit there," she pointed to a place on the grass near the wall of the house, "and try to be as silent as he is. And as you are."

While she did as she had said, the Templar Assassin now turned to Rikimaru. "You have about five to ten minutes before she starts talking again. Either you give her something to read, that normally keeps her quite, or you prepare yourselves for an onslaught of questions and stories by then. I'm off to do my work." She waved at the Maiden, getting no response, and vanished into the swamp.

Rikimaru looked at the Maiden, who was pouting now, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she stared into nothing. His girl came to his side. "Why did she come, too? She and the Templar Assassin don't seem to like each other very much."

"Oh no, I think they are in a relationship."

"They are?" Looking at the Maiden, too, she thought about it for a moment. Then she smiled. "Oh, they said those things for fun. To mock each other!" Without waiting for a reply she neared the seating Crystal Maiden and took a place by her side. "Hi, I'm Jayne. I'm sorry, I didn't want to appear rude. I'm not used to having people around and I wasn't expecting you."

And just as the Assassin had predicted, the questions began. But Jayne answered them all willingly enough. The Stealth Assassin was still standing there, which was kind of strange. So, since he had nothing else to do, he simply sat on the other side of his girl, leaning against the wall at his back. He took her hand, interlacing their fingers. It didn't matter if the Maiden saw it, she already knew that they were together. His girl squeezed his hand and he thought she was glad that he was there. She gave the impression that it was okay for her to talk to the Maiden like that but it was new and she wasn't completely comfortable with it. His closeness made her relax a bit and she leaned against him as she listened to the blond woman.

Rikimaru closed his eyes, blending the voices of the two women out to listen to the sounds of the swamp. He tried to hear the Templar Assassin but he wasn't completely sure where she was at the moment. She was good, but he hadn't expected anything less. With her traps around his house his girl would be completely safe.

"Riki." The girl had turned towards him. "Riki, Rylai has invited us into her palace in the north. I have never seen snow and ice, can we go there one time?"

The Stealth Assassin felt a little thrown off by the question. How could their conversation turn from answering simple questions to an invitation to one's home within a few minutes? He couldn't remember anything similar with any creature he had ever talked to. The Crystal Maiden smiled at him and he thought she was amused by his confusion just now. "You know," she said, "You don't have to ask him for permission. You can simply join us later. I'd love to show you something new after you have been at the same spot for years."

Now Rikimaru frowned at the Queen of Ice. Of course she was right. But aside from the fact that he didn't want his girl to go somewhere without him he would like to be with her when she experienced something new like snow and ice. Until now he hadn't thought about showing her things or taking her places but of course she didn't want to stay in this swamp for the rest of her life. And now someone else had offered to show her a new place and the way she was smiling she was excited about the idea. Damn, _he_ should have thought of that.

Jayne squeezed his hand while shaking her head. "I want to come, but only together with Riki."

He didn't hesitate. "And I will come with you, of course. If you wish, even today." Because he would do everything for her and if she wanted to go to the Maiden's palace, they would go.

Just then the Templar Assassin appeared from the swamp. She sat down next to the Crystal Maiden but didn't react when the blond woman kissed her on the cheek. That was the moment, though, when the Stealth Assassin realized that she wasn't wearing a half mask anymore. Her face wasn't covered like it used to be and it made her look more approachable. He would bet that she didn't go outside like that when she was on a mission but only when she was with the Maiden.

And though she hadn't visibly acted after the kiss, Rikimaru thought there was something, on another level, a flicker in the air around them, as if they could communicate with each other telepathically somehow. Since the Templar Assassin used energy he knew nothing about, it could be possible.

She addressed him now. "I placed some traps in a circle around the house. But we have to walk along the edge of the ground you want to make inaccessible. And there is the problem of the water. I can place the traps inside but the effect will be dulled through the liquid. Since here is a lot of water I think the ring of traps should be wider than normal. Does the waterline change often here? Are the paths you walk always the same or do they change?"

"I'll come with you." Rikimaru stood up. He wasn't totally comfortable with leaving his girl alone with someone. He knew it was dumb to be afraid of the Crystal Maiden hurting his girl. He knew that she was totally and completely good. Some creatures were like that, just like his girl. She was like that as well. Strange that he, as an assassin, was drawn to someone like that, and the Templar Assassin was, too.

The two didn't talk very much, only what was necessary. Then the Templar Assassin continued to place her traps and Rikimaru went back to the two women still sitting in front of the house. They were talking and laughing and his girl looked so happy and carefree, he knew that he would go with her to the Crystal Maiden.

He felt a little sad for a moment that someone else could make Jayne laugh like that. Until now it had been all his. Then he was ashamed about thinking something like that. Especially when in that moment she looked at him and her features changed, only the slightest bit, but now she smiled in a way she definitely only did for him. There was that special sparkle in her eyes, a deep rooted joy that appeared every time she saw him.

And when he sat next to her again and she took his hand, her fingers stroking over his skin, like it was the most natural thing in the world while still talking to the Crystal Maiden, he relaxed, calling himself stupid for being jealous at the blond woman for making his girl laugh.


	10. Chapter 10

The Templar Assassin didn't finish placing the traps on that day. She had to cover a relatively big stretch of the swamp around the house and that took some time. So the two women would head home for the night and the Assassin would resume her task on the next day.

The Crystal Maiden, standing in front of her, a bright smile on her face, looked up at the expressionless Assassin. "I invited Jayne. She said she has never seen snow before."

A soft sigh. "I suspected as much."

"Can we take them today?"

The Templar Assassin glanced at Rikimaru. Then she sighed again. It was only normal that she didn't want to have an assassin in her home but he on the other side wouldn't let his girl go alone with them.

Only a few minutes later they appeared inside a castle that seemed to be made of glass. Or ice. Since it was extremely cold, it was probably the latter. The Templar Assassin, maybe due to her powers, and the Crystal Maiden, since she was the Queen of Ice, didn't freeze, but his girl immediately began to shiver and Rikimaru thought he would, too, sooner or later. But his hosts had clothes nearby, pants, shirts, coats, capes, caps, gloves, even boots. Within minutes they were completely covered with cloth and cosy warm.

"We have a few rooms that are actually heated, since we get visitors relatively often and most of them would freeze all the time otherwise." The Maiden smiled at Jayne. "I'll show you your room first, then I can give you a guide through the castle. I think it is too late to really go outside now, since it'll be dark in a few minutes. We can look from one of the towers, when the sky is clear, the stars and the moon can make the snow glitter, it's really pretty. And tomorrow we can hike through the landscape." She was grinning now. "I have a few games we can play. I'm sure you'll like them."

The castle was really big. Servants were walking around, all smiling when they passed the Maiden.

His girl was totally in awe, she had never seen such a big building and since she had never seen ice, too, it was doubly awesome for her. Not that Rikimaru wasn't impressed, he just tried to hide it a little while he admired everything. The Queen of Ice had created a fine palace for herself. While she showed them around she talked with Jayne the whole time, explaining something here, telling a story about another thing there.

The two assassins trailed behind and suddenly Rikimaru had to smile at the picture they posed. The blond woman and his girl, chatting, while the two assassins followed, not saying a single word. He looked at the Templar Assassin. She seemed changed since the last time he had seen her. Still reserved but not in a talk-to-me-and-I'll-kill-you way. "How long have you been living here?" She blinked, the only sign she was astonished about him talking to her. "A few years."

Rikimaru thought that was the end of the conversation and a few years ago it probably would have been. But after a small pause she continued. "Rylai feels comfortable here and it is big enough to have guests and since I don't really care where we live we stayed here. Of course I made the place more secure than it has been since then."

The Stealth Assassin looked at the Queen of Ice. She said something to Jayne and when his girl laughed, she did, too. "They get along pretty well."

And then something strange happened. The Templar Assassin smiled, her eyes full of warmth as she looked at the Crystal Maiden. It transformed her from an assassin into a normal woman. Rikimaru wondered if it was the same when he smiled at Jayne. "She gets along with everyone. But she really likes Jayne."

"How do you know?" Of course it looked as if she liked his girl but when she got along with everyone he didn't know where the difference would be between getting along and really liking someone.

She shrugged. "I feel it."

That was amazing. First that she admitted that she knew what the blond woman was feeling, which spoke of a deep connection between them, and second that their connection made something like that possible.

They didn't go back to the swamp on the next day, or the day after. The Crystal Maiden asked Jayne to stay for a few days and the girl agreed immediately. Rikimaru still felt uneasy about letting her alone so he stayed, too. On the third day the Templar Assassin left, though, to put all traps around the house in the swamp. She didn't look overly happy to leave the Maiden but the woman just smiled at her and kissed her lightly on the lips before the Assassin went into town to fly to the swamp.

It was a high level of trust towards him and Rikimaru appreciated it. And since he was a little bored in the ice palace, Jayne and Rylai talking and having fun together with him watching them, he decided maybe it was okay to leave her for a while here. And so he ported to the inn.

About two hours later he realized that, for the first time since he had his girl back, he wasn't the least worried about her. He had left her with someone he barely knew, in a place that wasn't his, but he was relaxed nonetheless. As if he knew that the Crystal Maiden would never hurt his girl and that her palace was probably one of the safest places existing.

Smiling, he went for his business. And when he returned, later than usual but more relaxed than he had been for he didn't know how long, his girl was waiting for him, looking tired but unbelievably happy. She hugged him, kissed him, petted him and then told him all she had done the day. She talked and talked, a lightness to her that had been missing since he had rescued her. Seeing her like that was the first step for the Assassin to realize that he shouldn't put her back in the house in the swamp alone. Though she had been living alone her whole life, it seemed it wasn't what his girl wanted or needed now.

And when he woke on the next day, hearing her singing again, he knew that he couldn't put her back into the solitude she had been living in. He opened his eyes and saw her standing near one of the huge windows in the room, looking at the snow outside of the palace, a smile on her lips while she sang a song he had never heard before. It was a song about happiness.

Of course she had been happy before but he suspected it had simply been because she didn't know how different her life could be. In this place, she bloomed. She was even more beautiful than before, so full of life and joy.

Rikimaru realized he had to change something in their relationship now. He would talk to the Crystal Maiden and ask her if Jayne could stay. He would try to negotiate the longest period of time the Queen of Ice would be willing to let her occupy a room. He didn't really know where he fit in in this scenario, but while he looked at his girl he thought that it wasn't what was important.

His own needs and wishes would come only after his girl had everything she wanted and needed to be happy. She would come first, always, and everything else could be worked out.

So when he stood up and stepped behind his girl, hugging her tight, her back pressed against his front, he felt a little bit sad. He didn't really know why but it could be because he hadn't been able to make her that happy and because he didn't know if he would be allowed to stay, even if Jayne was. He shouldn't have been worried, though.

Of course the Crystal Maiden didn't have to be negotiated with. And of course it was no problem for Jayne to stay, as it was no problem for Rikimaru to stay. The Queen of Ice even seemed happy that she had someone with her now, someone who would be with her all the times the Templar Assassin wasn't.

Then the blond woman stormed from the room because she wanted to get suitable quarters for his girl and him when they stayed for an unlimited period of time.

Jayne turned towards Rikimaru, her smile so bright, her whole body radiating pure joy. "Thank you, thank you so much for asking her to let me stay. I would have never thought to ask something like that." Then she hugged him. "I love you so much, and you and I will have so much fun here. And I will have someone for the hours when you are gone and it will all be so much better!"

The Stealth Assassin just had to laugh. "Damn, you are cute." He kissed her on the top of her head. "You want me to stay here with you?" The question sounded light but he thought his whole heart hang on her answer. And he _had_ to ask, because she seemed to be happy enough without him here.

His girl looked up at him, her eyes wide. "What's that for a silly question? Riki, I don't ever want to be without you! If you don't want to stay here, I don't want to stay, either. Is that it? Now that you know I'm safe you will leave me again?" Now she looked hurt. Did she think he wanted to get rid of her like that?

"What?" Rikimaru was stunned. "Jayne, no! The only thing that matters to me is your happiness. You want me to stay, I'll stay. But if you want me to go, I'll go. I just don't want to hang around when you don't need me or want me because you are happy here without me. And the last days you were fine being with the Crystal Maiden. You didn't seem to need me."

She shook her head. "Yes, I am happy here. But I wouldn't be when I didn't know that you were coming to me every day. From the first time you left a present for me, I have been only living for the next time you would be there. Sometimes I thought I could feel you watching me and after the creepiness of it had vanished, I kind of liked it, felt safe and protected by you. When I was with the undead, I never stopped hoping you would get me. And afterwards you were what kept me alive, you where the one who brought me back, who made it possible for me to be like I was before. And now? I want to tell you what I did all day and I want to have fun with you, laugh with you and love you. I want to cuddle with you the whole night and wake up next to you each morning. I need you just as I needed you throughout all those years before. I definitely don't want you to leave." Her voice was very soft now. "But, what is it _you_ want?"

This question was easy to answer. "I want to stay with you, be with you, forever. And I don't care where we are, as long as _you_ like it and are safe. Everything else doesn't matter."

Her smile was everything he could have hoped for. "Then stay with me. I love you, Riki."

"And I love you, Jayne."


End file.
